The penny is beginning to drop for Britain's political class (Editorial, 28 November). Even David Cameron now accepts that the free movement of peoples within an ever-expanding EU constitutes a problem. But there remains an unwillingness across the political spectrum to acknowledge that a living wage and mass immigration are mutually exclusive. Either curtail immigration, in which case the market will automatically raise unskilled wages, or let business decide how many to let in.

An end to importing cheap labour from within as well as without the EU has a "democratic" cost. There will be a transfer of purchasing power from the majority "haves" to the minority "have-nots" as menial jobs that cannot be outsourced abroad become more costly: a small price to pay for all who espouse One Nation cohesiveness. As for Labour, it's not too late to pay heed to free-market economist Milton Friedman – an advocate of unlimited immigration and opponent of the welfare state – who said you can have open borders or the welfare state, but not both.Yugo KovachWinterborne Houghton, Dorset

• You say "renegotiating EU treaties to return control of national borders to national governments is top of the wishlist (of our politicians) for EU reform". By which you mean national borders for people. There is no parallel campaign for the return of national borders for capital.

It does not take a Marxist to see that the original concept of an economically integrated Europe, in which all barriers to trade and investment were lifted, would increase inequalities in the population unless it were matched by the free movement of labour within the EU. This was clearly understood by those who drafted the 1958 Treaty of Rome and the 1992 Treaty of Maastricht. It is the duty of politicians to explain this to their constituents and to convince them of its benefits.Chris WeeksVirginstow, Devon

• The government is right to criticise the Schengen agreement that allows the free movement of people between EU member states. The agreement was constructed on wonky economics: namely that free movement of labour is the same as the free movement of goods. The free flow of goods is governed by supply and demand. The flow of labour, on the other hand, is driven not just by supply and demand, but also by immigrants, who enable their friends and relatives back home to migrate by providing them with information about how to migrate, resources to facilitate movement and assisting in finding jobs and housing. Thus the free flow of labour, once begun, induces its own flow, and eventually becomes a self-reinforcing process. One can hardly say the same about the free movement of goods.

Since the "laws" that govern the market dynamics of free flow of labour and free flow of goods are fundamentally different, it is difficult to see how the former can ever become a basis for a rational immigration policy.Randhir Singh BainsGants Hill, Essex

• The saddest thing about the pronouncements from David Cameron over benefit tourism (Report, 27 November), is that it is all about "them" coming to us and not a word about the opportunities for "us" to go to them. A single market provides the opportunity for thousands of British people to look for work elsewhere in the EU. Many have done so and now work, live and bring up families in other member states. It is always a two-way process, and the thousands of UK people who live and work in Poland, for instance, are the other side of the coin to those Poles who supposedly clog up the surgeries and benefit offices of Britain.

It seems to be impossible for any UK government, whether left or right, to recognise that it is part of the EU and that thousands of its citizens actively benefit from the arrangements which make it possible to work – and to seek work – in another member state. Perhaps the Scots should wake up to the fact that unless they leave the UK next year, their own chances of participating at a European level will disappear. For it looks increasingly as though they will be dragged out of the EU in 2017 by the English south of the border.

Dr Mark CornerUniversity of Louvain, Belgium

• Your editorial suggests that voter anxiety about migration is a proxy for other concerns about living standards. This disguises the fact that the UK has a real, and growing, population problem. The housing crisis is obvious and health and education services are already overstretched. Corporations want free movement of labour but are unwilling to contribute taxes to help pay for the necessary infrastructure. We are totally dependant on food imports and our energy policies cannot meet our future needs. Unless politicians face up to these basic facts, such proxy arguments will continue to divert us from real solutions.Richard GilyeadSaffron Walden, Essex